CHAPTER FIVE
GUNNING OR RUNNING
AT FIRST, SHAE THOUGHT THE RAINSTORM had evolved into a full-fledged thunderstorm, but years of being shot at told him that the booming report was not thunder. He stopped and stepped out of the rain into the lee of a building to listen. It had been close, no more than a couple of blocks and from the direction he’d just come.
Another shot rang out, identical to the first, and Shae’s trained mind identified it. Heavy rifle.
“Not my business,” his pragmatic self said, and he started back toward his ship.
He took only a few steps before a third and then a fourth rifle shot rang out. He might have ignored those, too, had they not been followed a moment later by five lesser reports in quick succession—obviously pistol shots from a repeater—then another resounding boom from the rifle. Whatever the crux of this conflict, it had blossomed into a full-fledged battle. Shae’s curiosity vied with his innate sense of self-preservation. It didn’t seem likely this was a coincidence. Trouble had been dogging his steps for a very long time, and knowing the specifics of this particular trouble could be considerably healthier than turning his back and running away.
Or you could blunder into the middle of a gunfight.
No. Ignorance could easily be deadlier in the long run. Besides, he wasn’t exactly defenseless.
“Just a careful look, Phinneus.” Shae turned back and hurried across a creaky bridge to the next pier.
He edged around the building to view the chandlery and the tenements above. People were hurrying off the rickety piers for cover as two pistol shots erupted from the window of Grayfenn’s flat. Another rifle shot came from the roof of a lofty warehouse to his left; it blasted a new hole in the old sea captain’s wall. The notion that this could be coincidental vanished completely. The question of who would want to kill Grayfenn and why leaped into his mind, but Shae couldn’t see the shooter. The only way to find out the assassin’s identity and, more important, who was behind the attack was to take the sniper alive and ask him some calculatedly pointed questions.
Stoking his armor to the fullest and drawing his hand cannon, Shae dashed around the backside of the building to approach the warehouse from behind. He felt his power field firm as he crept around to the building’s gaping door. Two more pistol shots rang out, then another booming report from the heavy rifle. At the warehouse’s wide barn-door entrance, he saw that it was a net loft—the workers were in a full state of panic as each report from the rifle shook dust and rat droppings down from the rafters overhead. The slanted portion of the roof facing Grayfenn’s place was riddled with holes, attesting to the man’s marksmanship.
“Maybe the old man’s got some stones after all,” Shae muttered.
He ducked inside and watched the underside of the roof, waiting for the next rifle shot. When it came, he tried to gauge exactly where it had come from, but the sound echoed around so badly, he could only guess. He spotted a ladder to the roof and a hatch that allowed egress, and he estimated where a sniper might lie for the best vantage. Then he called forth his arcane might in a ring of glowing runes around his hand, and the spell slammed straight up in a pulse of energy.
The blast of his spell sent a section of roof spinning into the rainy sky, ripping planks and shingles loose in a shower of debris. He couldn’t see a flying body through the hole, so he couldn’t tell if he’d hit his target or not. He raced up the stairs and across the catwalk toward the ladder, readying another spell as he ran. Over the crash of falling wreckage against the roof, he heard the thunder of footfalls running above. The sniper was still alive, but Shae’s spell had stopped the barrage. He primed his hand cannon and swarmed up the ladder to burst through the hatch.
He caught sight of a stocky figure dashing for the edge of the roof, the shock of white hair on her head telling him everything he needed to know about the sniper.
“Ghostmaker!” He took a wild shot with his hand cannon as the assassin jumped, but his bullet went wide.
Shae swore and clambered up the rest of the way, loath to expose himself to the woman’s deadly aim but unwilling to let her escape. Questions rattled around his mind even as he prepared another round and hurried to the edge of the roof. Why was she trying to kill Grayfenn? If she’d been watching the place, why hadn’t she tried to kill Shae? Unfortunately, the only way to get answers was to capture her alive, but that didn’t seem likely. He’d settle for ending her threat forever. Still, Ghostmaker had proven on multiple occasions that she could pierce his power field with her rifle, and he wasn’t about to stand there and let her kill him.
Arcane energy swirled around him in concentric rings of glowing runes, weaving false images and ghosts to conceal him. He edged close to the eaves of the roof and caught sight of her hurrying across a lower roof. She was already out of range of his magic, but he leveled his hand cannon in a bracing two-handed grip and fired. The bullet spalled off the shoulder plate of her armor and sent her into a roll. She came up with her rifle aimed at him, her cold mechanikal eye set to the weapon’s arcantrik scope.
Shae sent every ounce of arcane energy he could into his power field and muttered a quiet prayer to Morrow that it would repel her shot. He reached for another cartridge, rushing to reload before she could kill him.
Ghostmaker hesitated for a moment, perhaps confused by the false images his spell wove around him, then smoke and fire billowed from her weapon. Shae’s power field flared with the impact of the heavy round, but the bullet missed its mark, passing his shoulder by a hand-span. She whirled and ran, even as Shae fired again. His shot gouged the roof at her feet. By the time he could reload, she was out of range.
To his surprise, she kept running, leaping with amazing agility to another roof and continuing on through the rain without looking back or utilizing her rifle’s superior range and accuracy. If she was out to kill him, she wasn’t exhibiting her usual tenacity. He wasn’t about to chase her. That would be suicide in this rain. She could lie in wait and put a bullet in him before he even knew where she was hidden.
But she had obviously tried to kill Torse Grayfenn, which raised all kinds of other questions. And now there was only one person left who might have an answer. The warcaster hurried back down the ladder and stairs of the net loft, ignoring the workers’ shouted questions, expletives, and accusations. Rain poured through the gaping hole in the roof, but it had already been riddled with holes before his spell, so his guilt was mitigated. He crossed a narrow catwalk to the chandlery and dashed up the stairs to Grayfenn’s flat. Several holes had been blasted in the front wall; the window was nothing but shards and one pane of unshattered glass. At the door he paused, warry of the man’s apparent proficiency with a pistol.
“Grayfenn? It’s Shae. Don’t shoot.”
No answer.
Shae checked over his shoulder again to make sure Ghostmaker hadn’t decided to come back for another shot at him then holstered his hand cannon and pounded on the door.
“Grayfenn? Don’t shoot—I’m coming in.”
He heard low cursing from within, but it didn’t sound like the man he’d spoken with earlier. In fact, it didn’t sound like a man at all. Shae opened the door slowly.
A short woman in a long coat stood with a smoking revolver in one hand and a bottle of rum with a rag stuffed in the neck in the other. She’d obviously been ready to ignite the rag and use the bottle as an impromptu incendiary device. Blood oozed from her left shoulder. Her hair was matted down by the rain, and from the soot and grime on her face and hands, she looked like she worked in a coal mine. To her left, Torse Grayfenn lay propped up against the back wall, a broad red stain marking the track he’d made as he slid down to his end. Blood had spread across the front of his grimy shirt from the hole blasted through his chest, the pallor of death on his face. His hand clutched a familiar money pouch.
“Damn it!” Shae looked back to the young woman. “Who are you?”
“Liane.” She didn’t holster her pistol, but she did put the bottle down. “Sorry. I was gettin’ low on bullets. Who are you?”
“Phinneus Shae.” He nodded to Grayfenn. “I’d just been here talking to Captain Grayfenn.”
“I know.” When Shae looked at her quizzically, she holstered her pistol with a shrug. “I seen you leave when I was downstairs. Came up to see if he was a’right. He was until some fella shot him through the winder there. Right through the heart. Damnedest thing I ever seen. Bastard tried to shoot me, too.”
“The person who shot him was a woman named Ghostmaker. A paid killer.” Shae inspected the woman critically. Her clothes were of good make, if somewhat greasy, but her coat looked new and didn’t really match the rest of her attire. Her boots had a shine, which seemed odd for someone who worked with their hands, which she obviously did. Her accent was local, at least. “You knew him?”
“Not much. He was a loner. Drank too much.” She shrugged again. “You think you talkin’ to him had anything to do with that killer puttin’ a bullet through him?”
“That could very well be,” Shae admitted. Liane seemed remarkably cool for having just been shot at by a professional assassin. He wondered if she was in shock. He’d seen new sea dogs go through a battle at sea as cool-headed as a magistrate at a hanging then faint dead away when they realized they’d survived without a scratch. “Are you okay? You’re bleeding, you know.”
“Just a graze.” She fingered the rip in the shoulder of her coat and winced. “My daddy used to give me worse with a willow switch for sassin’.”
“I see.” She certainly was cool-headed. Shae opened his mouth to tell her so when he heard the distant whistle of the city watch and realized he really didn’t want to answer a bunch of questions. “Look, Liane, I’ve got to go. The city guard might think I had something to do with this, and I have a job to do that can’t wait.” That job right now, he decided, was to get back to Talion without getting his head blown off and then to get the hell out of Ramarck.
“Oh, sure. No problem.” She shrugged again. “I owe you one, I guess, if it was you who blew the roof off that building she was shootin’ from. Prob’ly saved my life. I can tell the guard what happened. You wasn’t even here when he was shot.”
“Thank you.” He turned to go, but Liane’s next question brought him up short.
“You want to take yer money, Mister Shae?” She indicated the pouch in Grayfenn’s hand. “He said you’d just paid him for somethin’.”
Shae looked at the money pouch and thought he’d rather touch a viper.
“No. See that it’s used to give him a decent grave.” He ground his teeth, wondering if one day he would be lying in a pool of blood clutching the price of his own headstone in his fist. “He deserves a rest. He’s been through enough.”
* * *
LIANE FROMISH DEALT WITH THE AUTHORITIES as quickly as she could. Her military identification answered their first question, and a terse comment to the sergeant in charge of the detail about how she was working on something best kept quiet forestalled the rest. She gave him the money Shae had paid Grayfenn and instructed him to see that the dead man was properly buried. More likely the sergeant would keep the money and dump the body in the swamp, but that wasn’t her problem. Tracking Phinneus Shae was.
Meeting the pirate face to face had nearly stopped her heart. He had looked her over too closely. She realized that her coat didn’t match her other clothes, but he seemed to buy her fake accent and assumed she was a local. Fortunately, he’d been in too big a hurry to avoid the city guard to ask too many questions.
Liane hurried back to her ship, the collar of her new coat turned up against the persistent rain. Her shoulder ached and her ears still rang from the gunfire. She wouldn’t mind any of this, however, if she had gotten anything useful for her pains, but all she’d ended up with was one man killed and a little target practice. Climbing down the pier supports, she leaned down low from a cross brace and clanked her pistol butt against Intrepid’s snorkel. The sub surfaced, and she dropped down to the deck, quickly unlatching the mooring cable before opening the conning tower hatch and climbing inside. The air in the sub was thick but not so bad—the scents of coal dust and oil smelled like home.
“You’re bleedin’, Captain.” A crewman proffered her jacket while the others worked the hand cranks to keep the vessel stationary against the current of the outflowing tide.
“Just a scratch.” She doffed her canvas coat to don her captain’s jacket, wincing as the raw flesh of her wound raked across the rough material. “Submerge to snorkel depth, Hobart. We need to get downriver.”
“Aye, Captain.” The pilot pressed the levers of the dive planes down, his attention on the pressure gauge that told him how much water pressed down over their heads. The depth gauge had a line at eight feet, the height of the snorkel, and was painted green to fifty, yellow to seventy-five, and red to one hundred. No submarine had yet survived a dive deeper than one hundred feet.
Intrepid submerged, and Liane climbed to her perch in the conning tower, one eye fixed to the periscope. They eased out of the maze of pilings and girders and out into the bayou before pointing downriver. Once well away from Ramarck, she told Trilby to fire up the boilers. The crew sighed in relief as they let go of the hand cranks, swilling water from their canteens and chuckling at their successful mission. Their captain was less satisfied. They’d gotten in and out without detection, true, but she’d not acquired the location of the Seacutter from Grayfenn.
Heat began to build in the tiny vessel, but to Liane, it felt like the hearth of a snug home, not a chugging steam engine on which her life depended. Directing the craft downriver, avoiding ship and barge traffic, the thrum of the small steam engine and the cadence of her commands and her crew’s responses eased her singing nerves. She had time to think, and she realized that their entire mission had just been drastically changed.
She’d never heard of this mysterious assassin, Ghostmaker, but she and the rest of the Cygnaran Navy knew the Mercarian League had been gunning for Phinneus Shae for some time. They’d obviously assigned Ghostmaker to the job of tracking Shae to the Seacutter and impeding anyone else’s efforts to get any information. The result: one dead informant, and now Phinneus Shae was the only man alive who knew the location of the sunken Mercarian League ship and its priceless cargo.
“So we follow Talion,” Liane muttered to herself, rubbing her aching shoulder.
The irony of her life being saved by the very pirate they had been assigned to track was not lost on her. Shae certainly was an imposing figure, but Liane had dealt with far too many arrogant admirals and cocksure commodores to be intimidated by a grim pirate captain, even if he was a warcaster.
This mission just got very interesting, she thought, wondering where in the world following Phinneus Shae would take her.